Kissinger ‘Confident’ There Will Be No Korean Conflict

The Friendship Bridge, left, linking China and North Korea, and the Yalu River Bridge, right, which was bombed in the 1950′s during the Korean War, are seen before daybreak in Dandong, China, opposite the North Korean border town of Sinuiju.

Associated Press

In this Dec. 12, 2012 file photo released by Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s Unha-3 rocket lifts off from the Sohae launch pad in Tongchang-ri, North Korea.

Add international relations veteran Henry Kissinger to the list of people who aren’t tremendously worried about the possibility of major conflict on the Korean peninsula.

“I’m confident that in the end, North Korea will not be permitted to start a general conflict,” Mr. Kissinger said in Beijing on Wednesday, adding that he hoped the effort to deal with North Korean provocations would become “a common Sino-American conceptual enterprise.”

The former U.S. Secretary of State, who was in Beijing to attend an energy conference, is not alone in downplaying the potential for conflict even as North Korea continues to thump its chest over what it describes as a “a hostile policy and nuclear threat and blackmail” against Pyongyang on the part of the U.S.

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As WSJ reported earlier this month, polling data shows South Koreans feel less positive about the country’s short-term security situation amid the barrage of threats from their neighbor to the north, but continue to be confident that the current crisis will eventually pass. In a telephone survey of South Korean citizens conducted on April 8 by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, 58.8% of respondents reported feeling optimistic about the country’s long-term security prospects, down only slightly from 60% in early January, before the North’s third nuclear test in mid-February.

Ethnic-Korean Chinese immigrants living in Seoul have also pooh-poohed the idea that war could break out.

People outside South Korea have been far less sanguine, however. Taiwan recently advised its citizens against traveling to the South, proclaiming in a statement on April 10 that “the situation on the Korean peninsula is inching close to a thermonuclear war.” Meanwhile, a handful of top pro golfers have pulled out of South Korea’s biggest professional tournament, the European Tour’s Ballantine’s Championship.

Mr. Kissinger, who played an instrumental role in normalizing U.S.-China relations in the 1970s and continues to interact with top Chinese officials, admitted to being somewhat perplexed by the recent flare-up. “There is something strange about the situation,” he said. “They are a tiny country. We don’t even know if they have a [nuclear] weapon and they are going around threatening South Korea, Japan and the U.S. — which would absolutely destroy them — and for objectives that are very unclear.”

As in with past episodes involving North Korea, a number of foreign policy wonks in the U.S. have argued that China isn’t doing enough to rein in its ally. Others have countered that China can’t be expected to do anything that might lead to the collapse of the North Korean regime, which China sees as a buffer between itself and the roughly 28,500 troops the U.S. has stationed in the South.

“Korea is a country that has been closely linked geographically with China,” Mr. Kissinger said. “So obviously, it’s important for Chinese security interests, and the U.S. has an interest to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”

Whether Pyongyang can be convinced to give up its nuclear weapons remains unclear. The U.S. recently ratcheted back military exercises in South Korea and current U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said he might be willing to open a direct diplomatic channel between North Korea and the U.S. if Pyongyang signaled a willingness to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, but the North rejected that offer.

“It is the height of rhetoric intended to mislead the world opinion to talk about dialogue for dismantling the DPRK’s nuclear deterrent under this situation,” the Pyongyang said in a statement last Tuesday, using the short form of the country’s formal name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Still Mr. Kissinger said he remained optimistic the U.S. and China could work together to pressure North Korea into giving up its nukes, noting that China’s security interest in propping up the regime in Pyongyang “isn’t necessarily tied to nuclear weapons.”

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